


Shake Off Your Shoes (But Forget Not Where You've Been)

by throughtosunrise



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-21
Updated: 2017-08-21
Packaged: 2018-12-17 16:17:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11855220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/throughtosunrise/pseuds/throughtosunrise
Summary: Family bonds can be a strange and tricky thing.  Sara and Scott Ryder have determination and curiosity in their blood, always pushing them to seek out something greater.  Then again, on the other hand, there’s a part of the Ryder legacy that’s always tried to pull them back down to Earth.Or, Sara Ryder’s Alliance career and how it led her to the Andromeda Initiative, as told partly through the lens of her relationship with her brother.





	Shake Off Your Shoes (But Forget Not Where You've Been)

**Author's Note:**

> It feels a little bittersweet to have this story go up now that we know there won't be any further ME:A game content coming, I suppose. Just had to get that off my chest. That said, I still want to thank BioWare for giving me a group of characters and a premise that captured my imagination more than anything had in a long time and got me wanting to write again.
> 
> A massive thanks as well to my beta Nicole, who helped me rein in my tendency to write long and convoluted sentences that make a lot more sense in my head than they do on the page (seriously, this is an _invaluable_ service), and to my [artist Keita52](http://keita52.tumblr.com/post/164442474426/artist-masterpost-for-mebb-2017), who was incredibly gracious about my flakiness in communicating and made me very happy by bringing to life a scene I'd very badly wanted to be able to see, and not just imagine. I'd also like to thank Mandy for talking me into signing up for this despite the fact that I never thought I could actually do it. And last but definitely not least, Azzy and BB have my thanks too, for managing the considerable task of coordinating this Big Bang. 
> 
> Apparently using Sara Watkins lyrics for ME:A fic titles is just a thing I do, but seriously, "Take Up Your Spade" is a song that gives me all kinds of ME:A feelings. (It's a long title. I know. I'm sorry, I can't help myself.)

__

_Shake off your shoes,_  
_Leave yesterday behind you_  
_Shake off your shoes,_  
_But forget not where you've been_  
_Shake off your shoes,_  
_Forgive and be forgiven_  
_Take up your spade and break ground_

_\- "Take Up Your Spade," Sara Watkins_

* * *

  ** _Oregon Coastal Range, Earth, 2181_ **

Anyone who’d known the Ryder twins for any amount of time could tell you that when both of them were set on something, there was very little that could stop them.

Case in point: light pollution was an inevitable fact of life in any urban population center on Earth, and might mute the view of the stars in the night sky, but they had plans to go stargazing tonight and that wasn’t going to get in their way.  The Pacific Coast Range was only a short trip from Portland even for drivers more conscientious than either of them, and it was just past 11 PM by the time Scott set the aircar down on the shoulder of a dark, quiet, two-lane cliffside road.

“Not a bad parking job,” Sara said as she hopped out of the passenger side and shut the door behind her.  “Better than the first time we came out here by ourselves, anyway.”

“Because we were fifteen and didn’t actually know how to drive yet?” Scott reminded her.  

“Pfft.”  She waved a hand, and then started climbing up onto the roof of the car with Scott following suit on the other side.  “Details. We got better at it pretty quick.”  

Scott drew his legs up against his chest, rested his chin on his knees, and settled in on the car roof.  “Well, you know, lots of practice.”

“I still can’t believe we only got caught a couple of times, but then again Dad was... kind of preoccupied,” Sara said, huffing a brief laugh.  She let her legs dangle over the edge of the roof and leaned back on her hands to look up at the sky.  “So.  This is it, huh?”

“Yep.”  Scott was looking over the ocean, past the shore and out to where the ripples of moonlight reflecting off the water disappeared over the horizon.  “This is it.”

As kids on the Citadel, they used to sneak off to one of the docking bays or another and just sit there for hours, watching the ships come and go, looking out past all the lights of the Wards to the stars beyond.  As teenagers, once they’d moved back to Earth, that habit evolved into these stargazing excursions: night hikes in the volcanic mountains of western Oregon or long drives along the coast after dark.  

With their mother’s illness progressing steadily and their father withdrawing more and more into his work at the same rate, there were days when the mood at the house could be depressing at best; it didn’t take long before both Sara and Scott figured out that sometimes, for their own sake, they just needed to get _out_ .  Dad would take them out for survival hikes in the mountains every now and then; he liked to call them a modified N7 crash course, his attempt at trying to spend time with them.  "It's _bonding_ time," he'd say sometimes in that gruff and awkward way of his, and when he wasn't looking at them Scott would catch Sara's eye and punctuate the word with finger quotes and a grudgingly affectionate eyeroll.  

This was different, though.  This was _their_ time.

“You ready for this, little brother?”  Sara glanced over at him.  

“Never been more ready,” he replied with a crooked grin and a laugh.  “This time tomorrow, you and I are gonna be official Alliance rookies.”

“It’ll be pretty cool,” agreed Sara, leaning over to nudge him lightly with her shoulder.  “And we _could_ be having a big party right now, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to do this one more time.  Who knows when it’s gonna happen next, right?”

The question was less of a ‘when’ than an ‘if,’ but that didn’t need to be said.  Neither of them had missed the way their mother’s hands shook, however faintly, when she insisted on serving them all at the dinner table a few hours ago, or how much more reticent their father had gotten in recent weeks, at least until Scott had convinced him to recollect a few memorable experiences from the First Contact War.  Because there was no better way to get Dad to talk than to make it about work. Of course.

“Yeah.  Hey — do you regret it?” Scott asked, in a bid to steer the conversation away from growing uncomfortably heavy.

Sara turned and gave him a curious look.  “Huh?”

“You know.”  Scott shrugged.  “Deciding to sign up with the Alliance instead of going for that engineering degree.”

“How was I going to afford it?” she asked.  A faint edge of bitterness surfaced in her voice for a fleeting moment before it gave way to enthusiasm.  Money was tight, and had been since they’d moved back to Earth. Mom couldn’t work any more, and whatever the hell project their father was obsessed with now, he seemed to be sinking all their resources into it.  “Would’ve had a better shot at a scholarship if I’d decided to go to Grissom, too,  but... no.  Honestly, no.  I mean, I really want that degree, but we still have a chance to do some good here.  Help people who need it, keep them safe.  I can’t regret doing that.”

“Not to mention that maybe getting to punch a few pirates in the face every now and then. That would be a bonus,” Scott said with a nod.  “Like we used to pretend when we were kids. I could get pretty into that myself… less literally with the punching, though.”

Sara, who’d always been more of a scrapper than Scott, laughed softly.  “You get me, little brother.”

“Yeah, but I’m still taller than you.”

She elbowed him gently in the ribs.  “Well, you had to get some kind of consolation prize for not being me.”

Scott slung his arm around her shoulders. “Yeah, yeah.”

“It’s important stuff, you know?” she said.  “What we’re going to do.  Both of us.  Maybe not the most glamorous beginning in the world, but...”

“But it matters,” Scott finished.  “We’re helping to make sure other people have a future.  Gotta start somewhere, right?”

“Not bad, as far as places to start go.”  Sara drummed her fingers lightly against the car roof, as if for emphasis.  “One small step and all that, but we’ve got a long way to go yet.”

“Yep.  Sky’s the limit,” Scott said softly, leaning into her as he looked up into the sky.

“What, just the sky?  Pssht, nah,” Sara replied.  She followed his gaze up and out, into the vast blackness between the stars where the electric pull of the unknown always seemed to beckon her.  It called to both of them, really, on some fundamental, intrinsic level neither of them could quite put into words but completely understood.  Always searching for answers, looking to find the next big discovery — that was the Ryder family legacy, whether they’d asked for it or not.  “Not even that.”

 

* * *

 

**_2185: Chasca, The Maroon Sea_ **

Chasca was a tidally-locked world: perpetual night on one side, unrelenting heat and sunlight on the other, and only a slim band of habitable area where the two sides met.  Alliance Brigade 592 of the Ninth Frontier Division, along with the science team it was assigned to support, had its current base of operations set up in a small camp nestled in a valley in that temperate zone.

There was something symbolic about that, probably, but Sara was currently standing at attention in the prefab module that served as her CO’s office and wasn’t in the frame of mind to puzzle out whatever poetic observation might be there.

“I’m not happy about this, Ryder.”

Lieutenant Vliegenthaart set the datapad down and looked across the camp table at Sara with a sympathetic but clearly disappointed expression.

Sara kept her hands tucked behind her back and looked down at her boots for a moment.  “Believe me,” she said finally, raising her head again to look her commanding officer in the eye, “neither am I.  But I’ve been thinking about this for a while now, and I really feel like it’s the best option.”

Vliegenthaart nodded.  “I won’t stop you, you know that.  It’s just a shame.”

Sara raised her eyebrows.  “Which part?”

“All of it,” Vliegenthaart answered.  “Well, not _all_ of it.  It’s a hell of an opportunity for you, but selfishly?  The team losing you, the Alliance losing a fine soldier —”

“The fact that my career was going to go nowhere and there wasn’t a damn thing any of us could do about that?” she filled in, knowing the lieutenant wouldn’t have brought it up first.

“Yes.”  Vliegenthaart sighed.  “Ryder, if it were up to me alone, you’d be up for an officer’s commission in a few years’ time.  You’re a valuable asset to this team, but I hate the thought of you facing a future where the best you can hope for is making corporal.”

Sara shrugged, trying to keep her expression dialed down to a wry smile, but there was a tightness in her jaw that betrayed her frustration at how her career had been systematically stonewalled.  “It is what it is, you know?”

Lieutenant Vliegenthaart met Sara’s gaze, and there was an equal amount of frustration and resignation in her sharp green eyes.  Alliance Command viewed the family name of a dishonorable discharge with extreme prejudice, and in the face of that a low-ranked, first-time CO had minimal influence at best.  “Unfortunately, I do.  Damn it.  I’m sorry, Ryder, I really am.”

“For what?”  Sara ran a hand through her hair and sighed.  “You’ve done everything you can for me, LT, and I want you to know I really appreciate it.  You and Adeoye and Almanza — hell, even Silva and his whole team, you all went to bat for me.  You put your asses on the line for my sake, even after it was obvious the brass at Arcturus had their minds made up.”

“Bet that was fun for your brother, too, being right there and everything,” Vliegenthaart muttered, then cleared her throat.  “Sorry.  That was unprofessional of me.”

Sara gave her a crooked half-smile, but this one was less forced, and distinctly grateful; Vliegenthaart went to a great deal of effort to build a rapport with the soldiers under her command, and all of them respected her and that effort enough that they were willing to overlook her occasional slips into informality.  “Duly noted, ma’am.  And off the record, you’re not wrong.”

“You deserve better than this, Ryder,” Vliegenthaart said with some heat.  “I’m just sorry I can’t make sure you get it.”

“LT,” she answered, seriously and with no trace of her habitual deflecting humor, “that means more to me than I can say.  I’m not going to forget it.”

When the lieutenant smiled at her this time, it was with an undercurrent of sadness.  “Even where you’re going?”

This module had a small skylight, and Sara tilted her head back to look through it, at the stars that were perpetually visible here on the night side of the planet and then — as always — beyond them.

“Two point five million light years from here?  Yeah,” she said, her voice low, almost a whisper.  “Even there.  Maybe even especially there.”

Vliegenthaart laughed softly, startling her out of her reverie.

“Something funny, LT?”

“Nah.”  Vliegenthaart leaned back in her chair, balancing it on its two rear legs as she watched Sara.  “It’s just — there’s the trademark Sara Ryder excitement I know.  Been a while since it’s come on that strong.  I’m damn glad to see it again.”

It was Sara’s turn to laugh.  “That good, huh?”

“That good,” Vliegenthaart confirmed.  “That’s the look of someone who knows it’s only onward and upward from here.  When you first joined this team, that’s what you looked and sounded like all the time.  Hell, it’s why we picked you to be a part of it.  But the last — well, the last year or so, if I'm honest, I know you’ve been getting frustrated.  I don’t blame you, watching people get promoted out from under you and getting overlooked for opportunities.  And the last couple of months, especially, since your mother —”

Sara didn’t wince — it still came as a bit of a surprise whenever she didn’t — and rubbed at the back of her neck, her fingers ghosting over her biotic implant through force of unconscious habit.

Vliegenthaart gave her a quick grimace of apology.  “Look, Ryder, my point is: far as I’m concerned, part of my job is to make sure you all get the opportunity for advancement that you deserve.  In light of that, to deny this request would mean that I’m failing you, so…”

She sighed and picked up the datapad again, then tapped a few commands into its interface before handing it back to Sara.  “Private Ryder, pending final approval from Alliance Command, I’m accepting your notice of resignation.”  The formality faded from her tone as she added, “On one condition.”

A smile played about the corners of Sara’s mouth, and the sensation she’d been living with for months of a clenched fist inside her chest seemed to loosen its grip for the first time since she’d been denied that promotion.  “Oh, yeah?  What’s that?”

Vliegenthaart rose to her feet and braced her hands against the tabletop, fixing Sara with an intent and absolutely serious look.  “You’ve always been at your best when there’s something new to discover, to learn about.  You’re about to have an entire new goddamn galaxy’s worth of that.  Hold on to that sense of wonder, understand me?  Don’t _ever_ lose that again.”

Sara let out a long breath, then nodded.  “You can count on me for that, ma’am.  And, uh — permission to speak freely?”

Vliegenthaart’s smile was warm.  “Go ahead.”

“I’ve seen some of the ANN clips.  Everyone talks about how completely out there the Andromeda Initiative is,” Sara said, shrugging as if to say she could see why people would think that.  “That it’s all a big scam, or something no rational person would go along with.  I have to admit I'm a little bit surprised that no one here has said anything like that.  Well.  Except maybe Denman.”

“Who lives in numbers and statistics,” Vliegenthaart reminded her.  “But that’s her job.  And purely on paper, this project doesn’t look like a smart gamble.  But come on, Ryder, have you met this unit?  We spend all our time digging up massively advanced tech from _fifty thousand years ago_.  We don’t think small, and we don’t think inside the box.  Hell, to tell the truth, I’m a little bit sorry I’m not going with you.”

That was — a huge relief, to tell the truth, and tension that Sara hadn’t even realized was there ebbed out of her entire body in a rush.  “I talked to Chief Adeoye, and she says that according to Doctor Silva there’s probably nothing left to justify staying here more than another month, so I’ll be staying on until we wrap up at this site.  Can’t leave you all hanging.”

“Good to know.”  The slightly chaotic noise of vigorous conversation grew steadily more audible outside, laced with the distinctive excitement of a science team that sensed a big discovery on the horizon.  Vliegenthaart glanced past her, then nodded in the direction of the door.  “So, since you’re still under my command for a few more weeks, and Silva’s doing that excited-puppy thing he does when we’re on the brink of something big…”

Sara grinned and saluted her, then headed for the door.  “On my way, ma’am.”

 

* * *

 

**_2183: Rayingri, Armstrong Nebula_ **

Rayingri didn’t have much going for it.  Sure, the crimson sunrises were spectacular, and it had the kind of livable, temperate climate that a lot of Alliance colony worlds only wished they did, but the days were interminably long, and there was the small matter of the errant planetoid whose decaying orbit kept pulling it in, closer and closer.  The nearer Vahtz drew, the more it wreaked havoc on the planet’s weather systems and seismic activity.  All in all, Rayingri was a tough sell.

Still.  Those sunrises really were amazing.

Besides that, like so many other planets out here in the Attican Traverse, Rayingri was right in the thick of all the worlds that might once have been home to the ancient Protheans.  The Alliance might not be making active attempts to colonize the planet’s surface, but the promise of new insight to be gained from Prothean tech was enough to justify sending a survey team with a small detachment of marines.

The team was on the ground now, equipment unpacked and camp set up, and there was a quiet spot behind some supply crates in the modular unit that served as the team’s storage shed.  That was where Sara had tucked herself away with her back against a spare generator, her fingers flying across the haptic interface of her omni-tool, the sound of the wind howling distantly outside, and — as was always important — a view of the sky.

“Ryder here.”  

The comm link connection crackled to life, and the glow of Sara’s omni-tool lit up her grin at the sound of her brother’s voice.  “Hi, Scott.”

“It’s been a while, sis.  Good to hear from you.”  She could tell just from the tone of his voice, even distorted as it was by the long-range signal, that his grin matched her own.  ( _Obviously_ , she thought, unable to resist the terrible joke even for an audience of herself.)   “What, did you actually peel yourself away for some downtime?”

“Hey, this wasn’t planned for.  It just happened.  What, are you complaining?  ‘cause I can just —”

Scott huffed a low, warm laugh.  “And deprive me of your unique skills at being a pain in my ass?  Never.”

“Aww, you’re so thoughtful.”  She settled in, stretched her legs out, and got as comfortable as she could on the metal floor.  “We just finished setting up camp here, but there’s a pretty bad windstorm, so we’re sidelined until it —”

“Don’t even say it.”

“— blows over.”  If they’d been in the same room, she would’ve ducked the inevitable random object he would’ve thrown at her head for that.  As it was, she caught herself instinctively starting to dodge even while she snickered at his loud, overly dramatic sigh.  “We’re all just kind of hunkered down and passing the time, so I thought I’d check in.”

On the other end of the line, Scott laughed.  “So you decided to burn this month’s realtime comm allotment on me, huh?  I’m flattered.  Or wait, do I owe you something?”

“No,” Sara retorted, “but you will if I end up missing a really interesting debate for this.”

“Right, right.  You guys still arguing about what’s her name’s research?”

“Dr. T’Soni. And yes.  Silva thinks she’s got some interesting ideas, but…” She drew out that last word a bit.

“Oh, I get it.”  Scott’s voice warmed, got a little bit more indulgent.  “Okay, go ahead, let it out.”

He knew her so well.  “One of her papers draws a lot of connections between Prothean and asari tech.  He thinks it might be wishful thinking, like the similarities are just a coincidence, but come on, he can’t just write her off like that!” Sara burst out, and winced when she accidentally banged the back of her head into the crate behind her.  “Not to say I don’t respect him.  He’s brilliant.”

“So you mention every time I talk to you,” Scott teased.

“Doctor Pereira’s a little more open to it,” Sara continued; she wasn’t ignoring the affectionate jibe, just really getting into the subject and not wanting to halt her momentum for the sake of tossing a smartass remark back at him.  (Which said a lot about her level of enthusiasm.) “Not as much as Zahirah, though.  Watching her get into it with Doctor Silva, that’s… pretty fascinating.  The other day they spent three _hours_ going back and forth about Doctor T’Soni’s theory of asari circuit logic having its roots in Prothean design.  Wish you could’ve seen it, it was impressive.  She’s still working on her dissertation, but she can really hold her own against a guy with decades of experience in the field.”

“Mmm-hmm.   _Someone’s_ got a crush.”

“I do not,” Sara retorted.  A little too quickly.  “…Maybe.  Shut up.”

She ignored Scott’s barely muffled snicker and blustered on, “My point is, sure, some of Doctor T’Soni’s hypotheses sound like a leap, but that’s what people said when humanity first decided to try to go to Mars, right?  So where would we be now if we’d all decided that idea was too out there, huh?”

Three and a half seconds of silence passed on the other end of the line, then Scott answered slowly, with the kind of odd tension in his voice that came from trying very hard not to laugh.  “You’re… pretty worked up about this.”

Sara cleared her throat, realized her face was warm, and decided it was a good thing he couldn’t actually see her.  “Yeah, um.  The last debate got pretty intense.”

“I’m just saying,” Scott said, and she could completely picture his face right now, with the wide-eyed innocent expression no one would fall for, “not actually convincing me you _don’t_ have a crush.  But I get it.  I do.  We didn’t go to Mars, you wouldn’t be swooning over cute Prothean scientists, and I’d be missing out on this spectacular view right now.”

He sounded reverent, almost dreamy, even.  She would bet good credits he was staring out a viewport at Relay 202 at this exact moment, and it was her turn to snicker.  “Yeah, now who’s swooning?”

“I am not _swooning_ over a mass relay, thank you very much.”

“Scott, please.  I think you sent me more pictures of that relay in the first few weeks you were there than you _ever_ sent me of everyone you’ve ever dated, combined.”

“Well…”  He trailed off awkwardly.  “Yeah, okay, you got me there, but can you blame me?”

“Not really, no,” Sara reassured him through her laughter.  “They really are a technological work of art.”

“And a gateway to endless possibilities.”  If a tour guide’s enthusiastic delivery could sound a hundred percent earnest, they would sound exactly like Scott did.

They really were, Sara thought with a sudden burst of warmth, a family of unabashedly enthusiastic nerds, and for all the pros and cons that came with the Ryder package, she wouldn’t trade this for anything.

“Hey,” Scott said suddenly.  “Look, I don’t want to freak you out or anything, and it might not have reached you guys yet, but I’ve been hearing rumors from people on their way in from the Traverse, the last couple of days.  They’re saying that there’ve been geth sightings out there.”

“Geth, really?”  As many times as it had been hurled like invective when Dad’s name came up, the word drew an inadvertent wince from Sara.  “I thought they didn’t bother showing up outside the Perseus Veil.”

“Yeah, me too,” he answered.  “Not like anyone knows much about what they’re like now — like they’re some kind of anti-AI bogeyman out of stories, but… like I said, they’re mostly just rumors.”

“And out here, rumors grow like mushrooms.”

“Still,” Scott answered, seriously.  “Be careful, okay?”

Sara glanced out the window and caught her own affectionate smile reflected in the glass and dotted with starlight.  “Always looking out for me, huh?”

“Hey, if I’m gonna have a nice, cushy post right here by Arcturus, it’s the least I can do.  You’re the only sister I’ve got.  Who’s going to appreciate my five million pictures of the relay otherwise?”

“No one,” she said breezily.  “That’s who.”

“Yep,” Scott replied, and he was completely serious.  “Exactly.”

* * *

**_2185: Chasca, The Maroon Sea_ **

**__ **

The team’s camp was, by necessity, set up in the temperate zone at the planet’s terminator, but the tent where they parked the Mako lay just at the edge of Chasca’s night side.  Conveniently enough, if she climbed up and sat on the Mako’s nose (because no one had the time to dedicate to parking that thing precisely), Sara could see the gorgeous, random patterns of Matano’s light refracted through the planet’s ring, plus a few faint glimmers of starlight off in the distance.

She glanced down at her omni-tool as the call connected and her brother's voice came through the link. “Ryder here.”

“So hey, Scott, have I ever told you how much fun life is on a tidally-locked planet?”

Scott snickered.  “No, but you’re about to fix that oversight, aren’t you?”

Sara started to drum her heels idly against the Mako’s hull, but caught herself just in time.  Probably a good idea to avoid risking Chief Adeoye’s wrath that way, even if it wouldn't leave any dents in the hull. Probably.  “Bet your ass I am.  Excited yet?”

“My knees are weak with anticipation.  Are you still on Chasca?”  He sounded a little bit wistful, as always, and as always she couldn’t blame him.

“Yep.  Fun place,” she said, with a quirk of her lips.  “There’s just this tiny little strip of planet in the middle where you’re not either freezing your ass off or melting your face.  But you should see the planetary ring, little brother, it’s amazing.  I got some great pictures last time we were over on the night side.  I’ll send them to you.”

“Nah.  Save them, show me in person when we get back to Earth,” Scott replied.  “It’s more fun to see your face when you get all excited and start rambling.”

“Aww, have you missed that?  Has no one ever told you about mirrors, Scott?”

“Hey,” he protested, drawing a completely undignified snort-laugh from Sara.  “I geek out about totally different stuff.  Anyway, it isn’t the same, and you know it.”

“Never stopped you before,” Sara retorted, but her voice softened.  “Hey, it’s okay.  Just a few more weeks on this dig, and I’m done. And then, in just a few short centuries, there'll be a bunch of new planets for us both to explore.”

Scott took a deep breath, and when he spoke again his voice was tinged with the same kind of wonder that Sara remembered from every childhood adventure they’d ever had since they were old enough to talk.  And get in trouble.  “Yeah.  It’s going to be something else.”

“Damn right it will.  Of course,” Sara drawled, smirking a little bit, “I’ll still have a head start on you there.”

“Andromeda’s going to be a clean slate,” Scott said firmly.  “That wipes the score, too.  You weren’t one of the first humans to set foot on most of the planets in the Traverse.  Once we get there, it’s all going to be brand new.”

“Yeah.  Clean slate,” echoed Sara.  She thought about the last two promotions that had passed her over, and the cool disdain with which every officer outside her unit who knew the name Ryder regarded her.  And, to tell the truth, it still dug in under her ribs just a little bit every time she thought about the engineering degree she was never going to get now.

“— no accredited universities in Andromeda, at least not that we know of,” she suddenly registered Scott saying.  “You okay with that?”

Of course he knew what was on her mind, and somehow it was exactly what she needed to hear.  “Yeah.  You know what, I really am.  I mean, how cool will it be once we get the first university established on our new home planet, and we get to say we helped make it happen?  Us, Scott.  We get to say we did that.”

“I’m more than ready,” he agreed, and she could just see him shifting his weight impatiently from one foot to the other, wearing that same eager grin she remembered seeing illuminated by propulsion thruster glow on the Citadel’s docking bay.  “Building things up instead of watching them fall apart?  Sign me up.  I — we need this.  All of us.”

“Right with you there, little brother.”  She drew a deep breath and drummed the fingers of her free hand against the Mako a few times, just to bleed off a little bit of her excitement.  “But hey, guess what?”

Scott groaned playfully.  “Right, ‘cause that’s never an ominous lead-in with you.”

“Of course not!  Just like it never is with you,” Sara retorted.

“I am an absolute paragon of innocence and good behavior,” Scott informed her in a lofty tone that was probably ruined by the way she snorted loudly in disbelief halfway through the sentence.  “Which is why I’m going to ask you to go ahead and tell me, instead of interrupting you further.”

“You’re so full of shit,” Sara singsonged half under her breath, laughing.  “But anyway.  Yeah.  I got the go-ahead from Chief Adeoye.  Guess who _finally_ got to drive the Mako?”

“Like I said,” Scott singsonged right back at her.  “Hot drop and everything?”

“That part?  Sadly, no.   _But._  The important part is, I got to drive it.”  She traced an erratic swirling pattern in the dust accumulating on the Mako’s windshield, finishing with a flourish that spiraled up and off the edge.  “Chief said it was a goodbye present.”

“Cool,” Scott said with a soft chuckle.  “So do I get the details?”

“Yeah… oh, crap.”  Sara frowned up at the ceiling.

“Wait, oh crap what?  You didn’t crash it, did you?”

“No!  Maybe rolled it a couple of times but it’s not — I mean, the Mako’s fine, it’s just saying that?  It kind of drove it all home.  This is final.  We’re really doing this.”  She thought that over for a moment, rolled the words around in her head like a mouthful of wine, and burst out laughing, because how else could she vent the sudden rush of excitement that swept over her?  “Scott.  Scott, another fucking galaxy.  We’re _really gonna do this._ ”

“We really, really are,” he answered, exuberance ringing clear in his voice despite the occasional burst of static from the comm.  “The Andromeda Galaxy.  We used to dream big when we were kids, but never quite this big, huh?”

Scott made a thoughtful, wordless noise.  “I don’t know.  Remember how we had plans of going _everywhere_?  You could say that includes Andromeda.”

“True enough.”  Over by the camp’s storage shed, Sara heard the faint hydraulic scrape of doors sliding open and voices calling to each other, and glanced at the chronometer on her omni-tool.  “Ah, damn.”

“Wait.”  Scott couldn’t quite hide a low laugh.  “Are you… _disappointed_ about having to go play in the dirt in the name of science?  You?”

“Pssht, yeah, right,” scoffed Sara.  “I just lost track of the time, that’s all.  Chief’ll kill me if I’m late.”

She could hear the thumps of heavy equipment being moved while Chief Adeoye shouted instructions to Karingal and Vidović, and smothered a laugh when she glanced over to see Meeks busily herding Lev and his datapad out of their path.  “No, but seriously, I should probably get going now.  Someone’s gotta help Meeks keep Macias from tripping over something and breaking himself again.  Besides, these Prothean artifacts won’t dig themselves.”

“As far as you know, anyway,” Scott said.

“ _Yet.”_ Yes, it was a joke, but on the very, very off chance that there was truth to it, then it hit her that most likely she never would know.  Sara, who’d always hated leaving a question unanswered, might actually have been annoyed by that realization.  But there would be no end of things in Andromeda to pique her insatiable curiosity, and that more than made up for it.  “See you soon, right?”

“You bet.  And you know what?”

“You can’t wait either?” she guessed.  Not that it was a difficult thing to guess.

She heard Scott sigh.  “I’m going to give you a pass on stealing my thunder, _only_ because there’ll be plenty enough of it for both of us in Andromeda.”

“Yeah, yeah.  Love you, little brother.”

There was a brief moment of almost startled silence.  “Love you too,” Scott replied, and from the warmth in his voice she suddenly realized how long it had been since she’d actually said the words to him.  Right.  No more of that; she wasn’t going to turn into Dad.  

“Okay, going now.  For real,” she said, and disconnected the call.  No question about it, she was looking forward to what that far-off future had in store, to being free of the restraints that came attached to this same Ryder name that gave her such an undeniable draw toward the unknown.  For the time being, though, there was work here to do, things to discover that were just as important.  There was no way she wouldn’t give her team everything she had until it was time to go.

She liked to think she had some kind of legacy of her own to leave behind here in the Milky Way.

 

* * *

 

  ** _2184: Alliance Light Frigate SSV Talas, En Route to the Hades Nexus_**

Nobody in the 592 expected to be at a loss for things to keep them occupied on board, even if they did have the entire breadth of the Attican Traverse to cross for this expedition.  If Ops Chief Adeoye didn’t have them cleaning and repairing dig equipment (and the brand-new Mako that Sara was dying to take for a spin), Lt. Vliegenthaart might have them doing laps around the cargo bay or reviewing various combat scenarios.  Besides that, the unit had been put together specifically for the purpose of supporting scientific expeditions, and their down time almost invariably involved spirited discussions with Dr. Silva and his team.  There really wasn’t any shortage of things to do en route to the next dig site.

Like put away exercise mats, for example.  At the insistence of both Lt. Vliegenthaart and Dr. Silva, the science team was expected to keep in good physical shape; it had been unofficial policy for a while just because they spent enough time lurking close to the Terminus Systems, but ever since news of what had happened at Eden Prime filtered out their way it had become all but official. Nobody expected the scientists to maintain the same level of physical conditioning as the marines, but both Sara and Private Srivastava had spent a fair amount of time training colonists in self-defense back when they’d been part of Brigade 307 and took turns putting the science team through similar training now.

“There might be hope for Lev yet,” said Karingal, who had helped to run today’s training session, giving Sara a wry grin from the other side of the mat they were putting atop the stack in the cargo bay.  

Sara laughed and wiped sweat away from her forehead with her sleeve once they had the mats stowed and secured behind a cargo net.  “Mostly because he can’t hide behind a datapad all the time while doing jumping jacks.”

“No, but…” Karingal smirked at her.  “It does kind of get to be a risk when he’s busy staring at you the whole time.”

“Oh, for — pssht,” Sara groaned.  Dr. Silva’s young intern had a completely obvious, fairly awkwardness-inducing crush on her, which was fine most of the time, but not so fine while running through conditioning exercises.  The kid had already sprained an ankle at their last dig by being too absorbed in his datapad to watch his step.  “You ever going to stop giving me a hard time about that?”

Karingal picked up one side of the last mat and turned a slow, broad, absolutely smug smile on her.  “Oh, sure.  Maybe.  Like if you and Zahirah actually get a room so the rest of us don’t have to keep dying of pity watching you awkward all over the place at each other.”

“Not my fault Silva went and hired the cutest data encryption specialist in the galaxy!”  As if Lev’s crush wasn’t enough fodder for the team to never let her hear the end of it.  Just for that Sara was going to use her biotics to heave the mat up onto the stack so she had a hand free to flip Karingal off.  “Is there anything you guys _don’t_ give me a hard time about?”

“Nope.”  Karingal circled the stack of mats and punched her lightly in the shoulder.  “Hey, to be fair we like to give everybody a hard time.  You just give us plenty to work with.  God, what is it with you and nerds anyway?”

Sara snorted and started toward the stairs that led up to the crew deck, Karingal a few steps behind her.  “Yeah, yeah.”  She really had no comeback for that, anyway.  “Don’t know about you, but I’m going to hit the showers.”

By the time she was out and heading toward the common area with still-damp hair and a towel around her neck, most of the unit was already clustered around the table.  Kestenbaum was settled at one end of the table picking idly at her guitar; the soft acoustic riffs provided a soundtrack amusingly at odds with the banter coming from the center of the table, where Meeks, Vidović, Bang, Srivastava, and Mashima were absorbed in what looked like an intense game of poker.  Though, Sara considered, there was a good chance it was something else entirely; Mashima was a walking encyclopedia of obscure card games.

Toward the other end of the table was an empty seat, next to de Jong, and Sara dropped into it.  “So, we having fun yet?”

“Really?” asked de Jong, shaking her head in mock disapproval.  “Of all the opening lines, you go with that one?”  

“Sure.”  Sara spread her hands and shrugged.  “If I’m gonna be cheesy, I might as well go all out.  I’ll own that.”

Karingal, also fresh from the showers, made an appearance before de Jong could come up with a good retort, and derailed any further chance of a comeback by passing out a round of cold beers before taking up a seat at the end of the table.

Right about the same time, McKinley emerged from the room across from medbay that did double duty as the science team’s workroom and spare bunk space for the marines, then crossed in front of de Jong to flop into the chair across from Sara.

“Hey, Ryder,” she said, short red hair sticking up in five directions, and yawned.

Sara snagged her beer from the table and toasted McKinley with it.  “Morning, sunshine.”

McKinley swiveled her head slowly in Sara’s direction, still blinking sleep out of her eyes.  She made a fist and raised one arm, then slowly, delicately unfurled her middle finger, grinning the whole time.  “Aw, damn.”  She glanced down toward the other end of the table.  “Rani’s playing and I overslept?”

“And deprived us all of an evening’s entertainment, you jerk.”  Karingal good-naturedly flicked a bottlecap at McKinley.  “Like it’s not bad enough we miss out every time _we’re_ out in the field, and you Banner jackasses are still cooling your heels back at camp.”

“Insufferable Anchor shitheads.”  McKinley scooped the bottlecap up and tossed it right back at them with a quick and efficient snap of her wrist.  “Just remember who to thank next time you _have_ a camp to come back to.”

De Jong took a gulp of beer and slouched back into her chair with her eyes closed.  “Behave, all of you,” she drawled in a tone that threatened no consequences whatsoever if they didn’t.

“Don’t we always?” asked McKinley, earning her a snort from her squadmate.  She leaned forward and rested her arms on the table, watching both Sara and Karingal carefully.  “Hey.  You guys hear about Almanza yet?”

Karingal sat up slightly, and Sara frowned.  “What about her?”

Gunnery Chief Almanza was in charge of Banner Squad.  Not even one and a half meters tall and in the habit of laughing (almost giggling, to tell the truth) easily, she could handle turian firearms taller than she was with no trouble and had an uncanny ability to just flip some kind of switch to become an absolute hardass on duty.  Rumors had been circulating around the unit for months that she’d easily be a candidate for N7 training if not for her enlisted status.  The last time Sara had paired off with her during a sparring exercise, Almanza had gotten in a shot to her solar plexus so solid she’d been doubled over on the floor trying to catch her breath for five, maybe ten minutes.

“This might be her last tour with us.”  De Jong had dropped her voice to a low tone, not quite conspiratorial but close.  “Had a talk with the LT.  She’s saying the Chief’s in line for a commission.”

Karingal threw their head back and let out a loud, pleased bark of a laugh.  “No fucking kidding?”

“No fucking kidding.”  De Jong held up her hands and spread them wide.  “She called me and Srivastava in earlier, said we might be taking over running combat drills soon.”

“Seriously?  That’s pretty awesome.”  Sara tipped her beer bottle toward de Jong in a sort of salute and flashed her a quick half-smile, then chugged down three straight gulps of beer in a futile attempt to drown out her sudden flashback to that last sparring match.  A year and a half on this assignment, three years since enlisting, and here she was with a private first-class rank so new the shine hadn’t worn off it yet.

She was still sitting there, nursing a third beer, by the time the card game and the music wound down and the rest of the unit had wandered off to their bunks or other duties.  Just at the edge of her now somewhat fuzzy peripheral vision, a figure settled into the chair beside her.

“Hey.  Ryder.  You okay?”

Sara looked up blearily and shook her head.  “Huh?”  It took her a moment to process that Karingal was leaning toward her, watching with concern in their brown eyes.  “Oh.  Yeah.  Sure.”

“Bullshit,” Karingal said, snorting, in a flat tone that didn’t invite debate.  “You and Srivastava came over from the 307 together, and you _just_ got promoted.  And I saw your face when McKinley dropped that news just now.”

Sara sighed, took another pull at her beer bottle, then scowled and set it down when all she got was a smattering of suds.  “Charlie, I’m fine.  Just drop it, okay?”

Karingal dropped a hand onto her shoulder and squeezed lightly.  “You’re not, so no.  You think I wouldn’t notice?”

Sara rested her elbows on the table and let her head fall into her hands.  “You think I didn’t notice how everyone left me alone after that?”

Awkward silence hung over the otherwise abandoned common area for several seconds before Karingal sighed.  “Ryder, you know, it’s bullshit that you’re screwed because of what happened with your dad.  All of us think so, for whatever good that does.”

“Yeah.”  Sara rubbed her hands over her face and sat back up.  “I know.”

It didn’t do any good, because any influence one small peacekeeping brigade under the command of a newly-minted lieutenant had on Alliance command was nonexistent at best.  She’d inherited too much of Dad’s pragmatic streak not to recognize that.  It meant a hell of a lot to her, though; this one small peacekeeping brigade had seen batarian raids, pirate attacks, geth and their damn husks, and a whole lot of other shit together.

Karingal got up, and Sara could hear boots clunking across the deck for about fifteen paces, the sound of the refrigerator door opening and closing, then more footsteps, this time approaching.

“Chug that,” Karingal said, setting a large bottle in front of her — an energy drink loaded with electrolytes, standard issue for any Alliance unit with biotic personnel.  “Chief’ll have my ass tomorrow if you’re fucking useless because I got you wasted.”

Sara snickered despite herself.  “Aw, you care.”

Karingal dropped back down into the chair beside her and punched her lightly in the arm.  “Enough to figure out how to shove you and the grad student into a shipping container once we get planetside again, so you can get it out of your systems already.”

Her ears were burning slightly, but Sara put her feet up on the table, cracked open the bottle, and took a long drink. She could practically feel the nutrients absorbing into her bloodstream; not unusual, given how much energy her biotics burned through in a day, but dehydration from the alcohol added to the effect. “Ah, screw you, Karingal.”

Karingal just laughed. “You wish, Ryder. You wish.  Want me to drag your drunk ass up to the bridge so you can stare out at the stars until you sober up?  Ishak could probably use the laugh.”

The pilot wouldn’t mind; it wouldn’t be the first time she’d done this, though she hadn’t been drunk the other times.  Sara got to her feet, swaying a little, and put one hand on the back of the chair to steady herself.  “You really have to ask?”

Karingal grabbed the back of her collar, snickering.  “Don’t worry.  I won’t let you accidentally stumble into the airlock on the way.”

 

* * *

 

**_July 2181, Venture, Shadow Sea_ **

When Sara unbuckled her helmet and took it off, her bangs were so damp that she had to blink furiously against the sting of salt dripping into her eyes.  She set it down and started working at the fastenings on the rest of her armor, a bit clumsy in her haste.  “God, this fucking planet.”

One of the most charitable things that could be said in Venture’s favor was that at least the air here — thick, perpetually humid, and amazingly efficient at trapping in heat — wasn’t as acidic as it would be on most planets with a nitrogen-based atmosphere.

Srivastava was already out of his hardsuit — damn ranged specialists and their lighter gear — and had a towel draped around his neck while he cleaned his sniper rifle.  He looked over at her with a sympathetic, sweat-streaked grimace.  “We talking about the heat, or the colonists?”

She couldn’t keep a good grip on her chestpiece when her fingers were slick with sweat and her arms a little bit shaky from fatigue, and it went crashing to the floor as soon as she had the last buckle undone.  “Shit.”

“Good answer,” Srivastava told her with a sardonic chuckle.

Every rookie assigned to the Ninth Frontier Division got the standard lecture about not expecting glamour or glory out of this posting, just because they were on the wild edge of Alliance space.  That wasn’t a surprise; she’d heard enough of Dad’s stories, and if she really thought about it logically anyway, not many of the realities of colony life lent themselves to the prospect of prestige.  Nobody had warned her specifically about some of the people they were assigned to protect, though.

Venture wasn’t densely populated, in part because of the constant oppressive heat, but the xenon gas in the atmosphere was a lucrative fuel resource for the small industrial colony that did occupy part of the planet’s surface.  That, in turn, made the colony an especially alluring target for the pirates and raider gangs that frequented this stretch of the Traverse.

Not that it meant the colonists were especially _happy_ to have a small garrison of Alliance forces onsite.  

“I don’t exactly expect parades or parties after we fight off an attack,” Sara said as she busied herself wiping down her armor against the traces of acid from the planet’s atmosphere, “but a ‘hey, thanks for saving our asses’ every once in a while would be nice, you know?”

“And I could use a million credits.  Look, I know you’re fresh out of basic and eager to do good and all that, but… don’t hold your breath, Ryder.”  Srivastava reassembled his rifle with an efficiency bordering on ridiculous and got up to leave, nodding at her on his way out of the armory.

He wasn’t _trying_ to be condescending, she knew that, but Sara still had to fight off the urge to bristle and fling some cutting remark at him for it.   _Okay.  Deep breaths, count to five,_ she told herself.   _He’s not saying it to be a jackass._ She got to five, and managed a smile and a casual wave of her hand.  “Aw, you know me.  I never do.”

The colonists’ aloofness did nag at her a bit, though.  Not much on its own, but over the past week pirate activity in the system had spiked.  The heat and the rapid succession of fights had her feeling exhausted, not in great shape to fight off the residual aggression that felt like a constant crawling sensation just under her skin.  It was annoying, and the colonists’ attitude toward them threatened to nudge that annoyance over the edge.

Right.  That needed to stop.  After dinner she got into one of the environment suits that were necessary for anyone who had plans of wandering around on Venture and wasn’t equipped with a hardsuit, went outside, and climbed up to the roof of the barracks.  It was much easier to make out the lights of the xenon recovery mining bots moving back and forth across the sky than it was the starlight, which was somewhat muted here due to the density of Venture’s atmosphere.  Still, she peered out across the sky, drawn as always to the stars, as she patched her comm unit through her helmet and put in a call.

The connection crackled to life.  “Hey, sis, how’s it going?”

“Better not let your CO hear you picking up the comm like that,” Sara teased, and felt about ten pounds of tension drain out of the space between her shoulder blades just like that.  “Just thought I’d check in.”

Scott laughed.  “Aw, miss me already?  It’s only been a few weeks.”

“Sure,” she drawled, even though he wasn’t wrong, “keep thinking that.  Look, _somebody_ has to make sure you’re adjusting and all that.  Waking up on time —”

She heard him sigh, loud and theatrical, and really, there were good reasons that neither of them ever seriously considered going into acting.  Or maybe she just knew him well enough to believe anything other than that he was glad to hear from her.

She really did miss him, though.  They’d never been this far apart for this long in their lives.

“Think I’ve got the hang of this place by now,” Scott said.  “Such as it is.  I’m not over waking up every day and seeing the relay right there, though, I gotta say.”

“Yeah, I don’t think that’s ever going to get old for you,” Sara interjected.

“Yeah, that’s —” Scott trailed off, and concern flared up in Sara’s throat for a split second.  “And there it goes.  Man, what a gorgeous sight.”

Of course.  Scott always took on that particularly awed and breathless tone when he watched a ship go through a relay.

“So, should I leave you two alone for a little while, or…” She drew the last word out for a few extra milliseconds, for maximum teasing effect.

Somehow, the intermittent pops of static that filled the next few seconds managed to convey a surprising depth of awkwardness before Scott spoke.

“Okay, you saying that was actually a little bit mortifying.”

“Pssht.”  Not that he could see her, but Sara waved her hand anyway.  “That’s always made you happy.  Nothing wrong with it, it’s just part of my job to be a pain in your ass.  And now I have to get creative about that.”

“Lucky me.”  Scott practically chirped those words; there was really no other way to describe it.  “How’s the colonial life treating you?”

She was usually quicker to speak off-the-cuff with Scott than she was with most other people even if she did tend toward smartassery by default, but Sara found herself weighing her words carefully before she answered.  Tracking the path of a mining bot through the atmosphere; registering the trickle of sweat that traced a path down her scalp, over her left temple, into her ear.  Looking past the guard post barricades and prefab barracks modules to where the structures of the colony proper jutted up from the planet’s mostly flat and empty surface, on the other side of a fairly wide buffer zone.

“Well,” she began.  The one word was heavy with dry humor and a half dozen implications, and she heard Scott whistle.

“That good, huh?”

“I’m not complaining,” she stated, feeling the need to make that clear.  “The people here aren’t exactly off the walls with excitement about having an Alliance presence on the ground, which… I actually get.”  She looked toward the buffer zone again.  The civilians viewed the 307th Brigade’s posting as something close to a necessary evil and preferring to keep the marines at arm’s length and rarely crossed it; she wasn't sure she even knew the names of more than five of them, to be honest.

“What, like they feel the Alliance is cramping their style?  Yeah, I’ve heard people saying that on their way through a few times.”

“Eh.  That, and there’s a general sentiment around here that we’re only sticking around to get a good deal on the fuel resources,” Sara replied in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Oh.  Huh.”  Scott sounded a little bit disappointed.  “You think that’s true?”

Sara just chuckled, but she trusted Scott to know what she meant.  They might have enlisted for altruistic reasons, but Alec Ryder’s kids were never going to have a rose-colored view of the Alliance — and that included knowing better than to answer the question over an open comm.  “We were on Ontarom for a couple of weeks.  A lot more rural, but the colonists seemed nicer.  Then there was a rash of attacks on the refining plants here, so they moved us.  It’s definitely been an eye-opening first deployment so far,” she concluded.  

“I hear that,” agreed Scott.  “This posting sounds a lot more boring than it actually is.   Some of Dad’s more out-there training sessions have been pretty useful.  And I used to think it was weird when he made us play that ‘name five things in this room you can use as a weapon, and ten you can use defensively’ game.  The other week, we had a freighter full of toys come in for an emergency landing because it got hit by a batarian boarding party, and now I can legitimately list half a dozen uses for a hula hoop in the middle of a firefight.”

“Seriously?”  The thruster glow from an incoming shuttle caught Sara’s attention briefly, but not enough to distract her from a fit of snorting laughter.  “I know what you mean, though.  It’s hot as balls on this planet.  Our armor gets _so_ gross.  I’m never complaining about those desert survival hikes he took us on again.  I even sent him an email saying that, after our first combat engagement.”

Dad’s answer had been… the exact opposite of effusive, but at least she’d gotten a reply.

“Let me guess,” said Scott.  “He said, ‘Good, remember that.  Everything I showed you could save your life someday.’”

“…in somehow _less_ words, don’t ask me how, but yup.”

Scott’s sigh was equal parts unsurprised, exasperated, and grudgingly affectionate, which both he and Sara would have to admit made a concise and accurate summary of their relationship with him.  “Well, he’s not _wrong_ so far.  Gets a little weird though, sometimes, when people ask where I learned some of those tricks.  Don't get me wrong, they’re impressed too, but you know.”

She’d had a few encounters like that herself; the occasional handshake that stilled at the exact moment it was most obviously uncomfortable, or the visible change in demeanor (and, she’d swear, room temperature) when she introduced herself by name.

“Well, we knew that was going to be a thing.  Not too bad, though?  Just weird?”  She reminded herself, only mostly joking, that it wouldn’t be acceptable by either Alliance or general social standards to biotically punch fellow soldiers for giving her brother a hard time.  Sure, he could take care of himself, but it was the principle of the thing.

Well.  Maybe by krogan social standards it would — no, never mind.  Distance was also a factor here, anyway.

“Just weird.  Promise,” Scott assured her.  “It’ll pass.”

An overly optimistic way to look at things, maybe, but stubborn optimism was as much their birthright from Mom as the compulsive curiosity and, well, their biotics.  It made for an interesting combination, too, with the pragmatic, anticipate-the-worst streak they’d gotten (or had drilled into them, the jury was still out on that) by Dad, but somehow instead of canceling each other out those two traits seemed to reinforce each other.  For instance: believing in the full potential of Dad’s AI research, but being fully prepared to deal with the reality that most people weren’t going to take it well.

“And if it doesn’t, we’ll deal,” Sara added.  “Improvising’s all part of the adventure, right?”

Scott didn’t answer right away, and from his slightly distracted tone when he did she would bet another ship had passed through the relay.  “Absolutely.”

“Hey, Scott?”

“Huh?”

“Thanks.  This week got me on edge, pretty bad.  I needed this.  So, you know, thanks.”

They’d done each other this favor so many times there was no keeping score by now, but somehow thanks never felt unnecessary.

“Any time.  Hey, listen, I have to go, okay?”  A not-quite-intelligible announcement in the background partially obscured Scott’s words.  “Duty calls, and all that.  Talk to you soon, okay?”

“Go on,” Sara told him.  “Kick some ass.”

Was it possible to feel both lighter and more grounded at the same time?  Because she did, despite the stifling heat and cumbersome bulk of the (now thoroughly damp on the inside) environment suit.  With one last, grateful smile up at the sky, she slid down the ladder from the roof and headed indoors, in search of a nice air-conditioned room, a shower, and her bunk.

 

* * *

 

**_2184: Presrop, Hawking Eta_ **

A week and a half back on Earth wasn’t enough time to make her lose her space legs, which was a relief considering the several days’ travel from the Chandrasekhar mass relay back to the team’s current dig site on the other side of the cluster.  The downside there was that traveling by shuttle with no one but one Alliance pilot whose demeanor had snap-frozen as soon as she’d introduced herself by name left her with little to occupy herself except her own thoughts, and those were mostly a half-formed mess swirling around Mom’s last words to her and Scott, and the unnervingly _raw_ expression on Dad’s face.

She couldn’t even tinker with anything on the way; she didn’t have the materials.  

It didn’t help much that everyone seemed determined to check in on her when she arrived back at camp, either.  Dr. Silva’s team and her squad meant well, and she appreciated it, but there was only so much she could take of their condolences and inquiries before she felt like her skin was itching so much she wanted to crawl out of it and had to get away for a little while.  Everything still hurt; that much attention was overwhelming, but at the same time she didn’t really want to be alone.

One solar cycle on Presrop felt interminable at a little more than ten times the length of a single Earth day, and it was sometime in the middle of the long dark period before daybreak that Sara suited against the moon’s chill and thin atmosphere and holstered her sidearm because you never could take enough precautions this deep into the Traverse.  She hurried out to the edge of the camp, taking a brief pause to greet de Jong and Mashima, who’d clearly drawn the short straw for patrol shifts.  Of course she ended up on the roof of one of the science modules; no surprise there.  She wasn’t sure when exactly it had become such a rigorous requirement, but there it was: talking to her brother wasn’t right unless she could see the sky.

“Hey,” Scott’s sleepy voice came over the comm.

She realized, with a grimace, that she’d forgotten to account for the time difference.  “Oh, sorry.  Did I wake you?”

“Nah.”  He yawned.  “I mean, yeah, it’s the middle of the night here, but I haven’t really been able to sleep.  Haven’t really, since I got back.  Glad you called, though.  Made it in unscathed, huh?”

“Just a few hours ago,” Sara confirmed.  “Everyone’s being… way too nice.  It was starting to feel weird.”

“So you’re talking to me instead.  What, not worried about missing out on some scintillating scientific conversation?”

“Eh.”  Sara stretched out on the roof and tucked an arm beneath her head, idly picking out constellations as she stared up into the sky.  “Nah, apparently it’s war story night, and I’m not really in the mood.  Denman from the science team started asking people about what kind of action they’ve seen and it kind of snowballed after that.”

“Gotcha,” said Scott.  “Not a whole lot to contribute to the conversation there.”

“Ha.  Nope.  You know Kestenbaum wanted to be a professional musician?  But she grew up on Elysium —”

“During the Blitz,” Scott guessed.  “Whoa.  So she helped defend the colony, and that’s what changed her mind?”

“Uh huh.”  Sara managed a rough little chuckle; she’d heard the story before, and the look on Kestenbaum’s face when she told it was priceless.  “Fifteen years old at the time.  Even met Shepard for, like, a minute.  She says that’s what inspired her to join the Alliance.  How am I gonna compete with _that_ story?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  We’ve got a few fun ones of our own,” Scott said, half-jokingly.

“What, like the one about getting caught trying to take a dip in the Presidium fountain when we were five?”

“Yeah, and Mom was so mad…” Scott said with a chuckle that quickly frayed a bit about the edges.

His laugh faded out of existence as quickly as it had started, just about in sync with the twinge of pain that caught Sara behind the ribs.  Out of habit, she absently rubbed her fingertips against the back of her neck, right above where her biotic implant was.  

It was weird, having a part of Mom’s legacy be so literally a part of her: a complicated, haphazard tangle of comfort and pain all knotted up together, and there was no singling out the one without confronting the other.  Someday, maybe, reliving family memories wouldn’t catch them both so off guard, or feel so much like navigating a minefield.  They weren’t there yet, but someday.  For now that point still felt as distant as the tens of thousands of light years between here and Arcturus Station.  

“Sounds like this assignment is right up your alley,” Scott went on, snapping her back out of her thoughts.  “You sound happier these days than you did for a long time before then.  I mean, besides — you know.”

“Yeah.  I really lucked out with this one,” Sara agreed.  “Come on, Prothean tech!  All this ancient, sophisticated equipment to discover all over again, and I get to be a part of it?  Hell yeah.  I kind of still can’t believe they offered me the posting, but anyway.  Anything big happen since you got back?”

“Well,” Scott began, just as eager as she was to talk about something that interested him, even if just to avoid a more painful line of conversation.  “Had a transport full of scientists come through the other day — corporate types, though, mostly ExoGeni — heading in your direction.  So of course that was when we got hit by batarian raiders.”

“With all that fancy cutting-edge proprietary tech?  Naturally.”  Sara recognized that particular tone in her brother’s voice: he had stories to share that he’d been itching to tell her, so she settled in and relaxed back against the generator to listen.  

She felt guilty, sometimes, that she was the one whose assignments took her all over the galaxy when between the two of them it was always Scott who’d been thirsty for adventure — though she wouldn’t complain about learning that exploration fit in perfectly with her own lifelong need to discover things.  

“I’m learning so much,” he was saying now, “about the relay network and how it works, and did you know all the tricky little diplomatic details of relay travel are actually really fascinating?  I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Sounds like you’re having fun too, then,” she said, glancing out the window toward the sky with a half-smile that was tired yet relieved.  Being stuck on the outpost might not have been Scott’s dream assignment, but he was making the most of it and she was proud of him for that.  

Besides, it seemed appropriate somehow; there was a permanence to his duties that she didn’t get, living in camps and aboard starships, constantly moving from one dig site to another.  It was a link to home, a sort of anchor, and that fit with the way one of them had always been there to help keep the other grounded, how they helped reel each other in when they started to drift too far away… but never keep each other from trying to reach for something higher.  She could give him a sense of what there was to see out here on the edge of Alliance space, and he could help her keep in touch with what was going on close to the galactic core.

It wasn’t perfect — far from it, and anyway everything felt at least a little bit wrong now without Mom.  But even if it felt a little bit like biding their time until an ideal opportunity arose, the right kind of big adventure they could embark upon together, they’d make it work.

 

* * *

 

**_2171: Tayseri Ward, The Citadel_ **

“Scott, come _on!_ ”

If she weren’t so intent on her destination, Sara would have been amused to know that despite his longer legs, Scott had to put some effort into keeping up with her.

Though that might have had to do with the way he kept looking over his shoulder for any sign of pursuit.  “Are you really sure about this?”

“Yes,” Sara replied firmly, and reached back to grab his hand.  She’d tow him along if she had to.  “Dad said not to wait up for him, he’d probably be stuck in meetings all night —”

“He wouldn’t notice anyway,” Scott grumbled.

“— and we’ll be back before Mom wakes up,” Sara went on.  She could hardly rebuke him for the comment when she agreed.

Scott rubbed at the back of his neck and sighed.  “Okay, I guess.”

“It’ll be worth it,” Sara persisted.  “I heard some of the dock hands talking about how it’s going to be busy tonight, so there’ll be lots to watch.”

“Really?”  Scott visibly brightened at the prospect, and he started to jog.

“Uh huh.”  Sara yanked on his hand again.  “Now, come _on_ already.  You helped me come up with this plan, remember?  I’m not gonna do it without you.”

Time on the Citadel was based on the simulated circadian rhythm of the Presidium, but here in the Wards where the solar lamps didn’t follow the Presidium’s schedule it was never really night out, anyway.  The Wards never really slept.  Even in areas where solar lamps were a little more scarce, neon signs and storefront displays maintained some level of illumination, but here in what passed for Tayseri’s arts district, it was all broad daylight, all the time.

“Sara,” Scott hissed under his breath, his hand tensing against hers, as they passed a C-Sec patrol car parked outside the Gaeron Botanical Gardens.  

She glanced toward the car, but couldn’t make out any movement inside through the tinted windows; still, two eight-year-old humans wandering unsupervised through the busiest part of the Ward stuck out more than a little bit.  (They knew that well enough, having been escorted home by stern-looking C-Sec officers on a few occasions.)

Scott jerked his chin across the plaza to the Dilinaga Concert Hall, where a performance was just letting out, and caught his sister’s eye; she nodded, and both of them set out toward the crowd at a pace that was only a touch too fast to look leisurely.

“You know where to go from here, right?” she asked, ducking around an elegantly dressed asari matriarch and her salarian companion.  “In case we get split up, I mean.”

“Pfft,” Scott retorted.  “‘course I do.  But let’s not, okay?”

Sara just laughed, albeit a little bit nervously, as she negotiated her way past a small group of turians standing by a fountain and discussing the merits of the performance.  “Better not, or we’re going to miss half the fun.”

They didn’t get split up or lost, as it turned out, and twenty minutes later they were huddled under the fronds of a pair of large ferns in a planter outside one of the docking bays, watching people come and go.

“Do you see it yet?” Sara asked, careful to keep her voice down even if the Saronis Applications advertisement playing on a nearby kiosk did help mask their conversation.

“Uh huh.”  Scott tugged on her sleeve and pointed to an access panel, slightly ajar, in an alcove directly across from them.  “No one’s looking, let’s go!”

They scrambled out of the planter and across the walkway into the alcove as fast as they could, and Scott was prying the panel open before Sara even skidded to a stop.  “Come on, come on,” he whispered, and squeezed in as soon as she’d moved far enough inside to give him room.

“Wow,” he said, blinking as he adjusted to the dim lighting of the crawlspace.  “It’s bigger than I thought in here.”

Sara brushed her hair back out of her eyes and looked around, peering with fascination at some of the conduits and circuitry.  “We can even stand up.  I guess the keepers use this, maybe?  It looks big enough for them to move around.”

“Cool,” Scott said, grinning.  “Okay, let’s see where it goes.”

“We _know_ where it goes, goofball, remember?”  Sara stuck her tongue out at him.

Scott stuck his tongue out right back at her.  “Yeah, but we gotta get there first.”

“And that’s the fun part,” she finished, nodding.  

By that standard, the passageway turned out to be disappointingly short; it only took two turns and a long, precarious climb up a narrow ladder in near darkness before it let them out onto a tiny platform overlooking the docking bay.  They were what looked like three or four stories up and tucked into a darker corner of the bay, high enough to avoid notice but with a breathtaking panoramic view of everything going on below.

Scott was sitting on the edge of the platform, kicking his feet back and forth.  “This is perfect,” he said happily, and pointed down toward a small freighter that had just docked in a berth at the far end of the bay.  “Wonder where that one came from?”

Sara, sprawled out on her stomach with her chin in her hands, squinted down toward the freighter.  “Dunno.  Looks like a volus crew?  I don’t remember much about them yet.”

“Oh, I do!”  Scott whacked her in the arm several times, lightly, in his eagerness to share what he knew.  “They’re from Irune, and they’re really good at business stuff.  So this crew could’ve come from anywhere.”

“Okay, smarty-pants.”  Sara gave him a mischievous grin.  “But can you tell where?”

Scott pulled a small pair of binoculars from his pocket to take a closer look, and Sara could see his slight frown of disappointment after a few moments.  “Nuh uh.  It doesn’t look like they have cargo to unload.”

Sara spotted a truck coming up the ramp toward the freighter and nudged him.  “But they _are_ loading cargo.  So they’re going somewhere with it.”

“Yeah.”  Scott focused his binoculars on the cargo crates, probably trying to find any clues as to their contents, then sighed.  “Can’t tell where, though.  I wish I knew.  It could be anywhere.”

Both of them had to close their eyes briefly against the blinding lights of another, bigger ship as it entered the docking bay: a passenger cruiser this time, easing into a berth closer to Sara and Scott’s hidden perch.

“Oh, I bet I know where that one’s from,” Scott said, once his vision had adjusted and he could make out the name of the transport company emblazoned across the cruiser’s hull.  “Grand Pranas Spaceways.  That’s in salarian space.  They’re probably coming from Sur’Kesh.”

“The salarian homeworld?”  Sara couldn’t help grinning proudly over at her brother.  “You’ve really been reading up on all this stuff.”

“Well, _yeah_ ,” Scott replied, sounding mildly affronted that she’d even doubt him.  “There’s so many places in the galaxy that we could go, and I wanna see them all.”

The thing was, she didn’t doubt his resolve, nor did she doubt he’d find a way to do it.  “You have to start _somewhere_ ,” she argued — reasonably, she thought.  “Where would you go _first_?”

Scott chewed on his lower lip and frowned, hard, then dug both hands into his hair in concentration while he thought.  “Everywhere,” he finally blurted out.

Sara snickered.  “You can’t do that all at once.”

“Why not?” asked Scott, scowling at the very idea of practical limitations.

“‘cause… physics.”  She couldn’t remember all the words to articulate the concept just yet, but Scott wasn’t the only one who read up on the things that interested him.  Her brother looked so disappointed that she had to reach over and ruffle his hair, earning another frown and a half-hearted swat.  She deflected the swat easily, like Dad had taught them, and patted him on the shoulder.  “It’s okay.  In a few years, I’ll know enough to figure out a way to make it so you _can_ be everywhere at once if you want to.”

Scott relaxed at that, setting his binoculars aside to look at her.  “And then you’ll come with me, right?”

“Sure,” she said, shrugging.  “As long as I can build stuff in between stops.”

“Well, ‘course,” Scott said with a determined nod.  “I’ve gotta have a chief engineer, right?  And if I’m gonna see the entire galaxy, I’m gonna need the best chief engineer ever.”

Sara shifted over a bit so she could nudge him with her shoulder.  “Yeah.  You point us where you want to go, I’ll make sure we get there.  It’ll be great.”

“Uh huh, it —” The incandescent flare and distinct high-pitched whine of thrusters firing caught Scott’s attention, then Sara’s, as a turian frigate pulled away from the neighboring docking bay on a course for the Widow relay.  

Scott whipped his binoculars up again, and in his attempt to get a glimpse of the frigate’s designation leaned so far forward that Sara grabbed him by the collar of his shirt to haul him back to safety.

“The PFS _Havincaw_ ,” he said, awed and breathless.  “Look, there it goes!”

Even a ship traveling at standard FTL speed was visible from this distance, and when the relay enveloped the _Havincaw_ in a mass effect field and sent it hurtling off into deep space the bright blue-shifted burst of light was impossible to miss.  Sara tracked the flight path of the distant ship for as long as she could, vaguely aware that as she hitched herself forward on her elbows an inch or two like she was trying to follow after it, her brother was doing much the same thing.  

“Breathe, Scott,” Sara said after the frigate disappeared from view, even though she’d only just remembered to do the same herself.  He was still leaning forward, and her arm was starting to shake from the effort of holding him back.  “And don’t fall.”

He looked over at her, smirking faintly.  “You wouldn’t let me anyway.”

Sara made a face at him.  “I might now, if you keep that up.”

“No, you wouldn’t.”

“Would — come on, Scott, don’t be dumb!”  She could feel her muscles starting to seize up and her fingers threatening to lock into an awkward clawed grip, but just before a real cramp set in her brother shifted backwards several inches and all the tension that had been building in her arm and shoulder just ebbed away.  

“Not being dumb,” he said with a smile that might have been angelic except that she knew him too well to buy it.  “I just knew you wouldn’t let me fall.”

He was right, and Sara acknowledged it with a shrug and a little laugh.  “Not by yourself, anyway.  You wanted to follow that ship as bad as I did.”

Scott nodded.  “I could… I could almost _feel_ it,” he said in a reverent near-whisper.  “Like it was pulling me with it.  And then it disappeared and I just wanted to be wherever it went.  I don’t even care where that is, I just had to _be_ there.”

“I want to know,” Sara said, her own voice just as soft and full of awe.  “Where it’s going, how it’s getting there, all that stuff.  I want to find out.  All of it.”

“Someday, right?”  Scott nudged her with his shoulder.

“Yeah.”  Sara nudged him back.  “We’ll find out for sure.  Someday.”

Soon, hopefully.

 

* * *

 

**_2185: Ontarom, Kepler Verge_**

**__ **

A small private freighter set down on the landing pad reserved for civilian use, and a blast of heat flooded the transport’s cabin the second the hatch opened.  Sara was wiping the sweat away from her forehead before she even made it out of the ship.

“Thanks for the ride,” she yelled over the general spaceport noise as she hopped out.

He gave her a little nod and a jaunty wave .  “Sure thing.  Good luck out there!”

Ha.  An eighteen hour shuttle ride, just her and a turian pilot.  He’d been surprisingly relaxed and chatty — had an aunt who signed on with the Initiative as a geologist, he said, and thought the whole thing was fascinating but definitely not for him — but it struck her as absolutely hilarious that six-year-old her would have been terrified anyway.  

Most Alliance soldiers learned to travel light, and that went double for those who moved around as much as her team did; you learned how to pare things down to what you needed and not get attached to the rest.  Sara only had the one bag slung over her shoulder when she stepped out of the transport and headed across the base toward the military landing zone to wait for the shuttle that would take her back to Arcturus Station.

Also hilarious, but in a darker way: her last trip in uniform was taking her back to the same place as her first.

“Hello again, Ontarom,” she muttered wryly, walking slowly to take in the sight of the Alliance base.  The skyline was more jagged than she remembered, and the base was busier; several new satellite arrays had sprung up here in the last four years, from the look of it, and expanded operations meant, of course, more personnel.  “Huh.  You’ve grown since the last time I saw you.”

There was another woman sitting on the bench when she arrived: maybe a few years older than Sara, with dark hair swept up into a severe bun, an identical bag at her feet, and the disciplined bearing of a woman who had Alliance in her blood.  She had a haggard, slightly haunted look in her eyes, but when she noticed Sara approaching she glanced up and offered a brief smile.

“Hey there.  Shipping out too?” There was a certain timbre to her voice, something that almost sounded broken; it was achingly familiar, and without realizing it Sara reached up to run her fingers across the base of her skull.

As she dropped down onto the opposite end of the bench and leaned back with her elbows propped up against the backrest so she could look out across the horizon, Sara glanced at the woman’s uniform and noted the insignia of a chief petty officer.  “Nah.  Heading home.”

The woman nodded.  “I thought I saw you coming in on a civilian ship.”  

“Yeah, it was pretty remote where I was,” Sara explained.  “Had to get a ride out with the supply delivery.”

“Been there, done that,” the woman said.  “Going on leave?”

Sara blew out a long breath.  “Sure, if you mean permanently.  Gotta head back to HQ to finalize my resignation.”  And wow, all of a sudden there was reality sinking in.  “Guess this is really it, huh.”

“Wait, really?” asked the woman, frowning.  “What are you, twenty?  I’m not going to say you don’t have your reasons, but you’ve got a whole career ahead of you.  Seems kind of a damn shame.”

“Ha.  It really kind of is, but my career was dead in the water anyway.”  Sara let her head roll back to look up at the sky, then turned to look at her.   _Oh, what the hell,_ she decided.  “Name’s Ryder, by the way.”

“Wait.  You’re —” The woman’s eyes widened, lit up with understanding in a way that somehow didn’t make Sara want to crawl under a rock and hide for a while like she usually did when someone made that connection; she could pick up an undertone of sympathy in the woman’s voice, but some wariness as well.  Huh.  She’d be willing to guess that someone had strong feelings about AIs.  “Yeah. I know how that goes.”

Sara raised her eyebrows.  “Oh?”

Silence fell for a brief moment as the woman clenched her jaw, seemingly debating something.  Finally she exhaled heavily, though Sara couldn’t say whether it was out of annoyance or resignation, and held a hand out.  “Ops Chief Ashley Williams.  Nice to meet you, Ryder.”

Oh.   _Oh._

On one of the rare occasions that he was both around and willing to talk, Dad had told her and Scott about how General Williams had surrendered the garrison at Shanxi; he hadn’t been very charitable about it back then, but after — well — everything, Sara had to wonder if he’d feel differently now.  She blinked hard, as if it would chase away her look of surprise, and reached out to shake her hand.  Chief Williams had a firm grip, and her palm was callused in the familiar rifle-grip pattern of career infantry.    

“The feeling’s mutual, Chief,” she answered.  That name sounded vaguely familiar to her, like she’d caught it in passing on some only half-heard news blurb.  

Ashley nodded at her, then relaxed back against the bench.  “So, got something lined up after this?”

“Oh, I definitely do.  Safe to say I’ve got … some pretty big plans coming up.”  And wasn’t that an understatement? Big plans.  Big, one-way-trip, never-been-done-before plans.

“That’s good; something to look forward to.”  Ashley shook her head.  “Going back to civilian life.  Damn.  That’s something I can’t even imagine.  I’d be climbing the walls in less than a day.”

Sara turned to face her, hooking one arm over the back of the bench and resting the other against her knee.  “Yeah, you’re kind of a lifer, huh?”

“Born and raised,” Ashley confirmed, and offered a brief, sardonic smile before continuing, “just part of a fine, multi-generation tradition of Alliance service.  Even if — well, you know.”

“Wow.”  Sara blinked and shook her head.  “That’s pretty impressive.   There’s just me and my brother, and our dad before that.”

“Your brother serves too?”  Ashley hadn’t mentioned their father; that was a relief.

“Yeah, stationed at Relay 202.”   She quirked up one side of her mouth in a half-smile.  “Well, was.  He resigned, too.  It’s a family thing.  It’s complicated.”

“I get that.”  Somehow, the forcefulness in Ashley’s voice was a bit of a surprise.  “Family always is.”

“Uh huh.  You know, it’s kind of funny?” Sara said, and waved a hand toward the nearest communications array.  “This was actually my first posting.”

Ashley laughed.  “What, this place?”

“Yep.”  Sara grinned.  “Ninth Frontier Division, Brigade 307, peacekeeping and colonial defense.”

“The grand tour of the armpits of Alliance space?” Ashley huffed a laugh.  “Yeah, sounds familiar.  I was in the Second Frontier Division, Brigade 212.  Had a lot of those assignments myself, then I lucked out.  For a little while, anyway.  I came here on one op, though, and that got pretty messy.  And then there was the thing with the cow, and it just got _weird._ ”

“Wait,” Sara burst out, “that thing was _real_?  I was sure the colonists were just trying to fuck with me.”

The familiar shadow of a UT-47 Kodiak in Alliance colors fell across the landing pad, and the high-pitched whine of its engines as it descended drowned out whatever Ashley had said.  

Sara glanced at the designation on the shuttle’s hull.  “Huh.  Not my ride.”

“Not unless you’re heading for Horizon,” Ashley said dryly; she rose to her feet and picked up her bag.  “I’d ask more, but…” She chucked a thumb over her shoulder at the shuttle, and the tiny hint of listlessness in her demeanor gave Sara the feeling that whatever this new assignment was, she wasn’t thrilled about it.

“I get it.  Duty calls.”  Sara stood as well and snapped into an instinctive salute.  “Hey, wherever you’re going, good luck out there, Chief.”

“Thanks, Ryder.  You too.”  Ashley gave her one last smile and started toward the shuttle.  Just before she was out of earshot she muttered, quietly, “God knows, we’re all going to need it.”

“Yeah, you’re not wrong about that,” Sara told the empty landing pad as the shuttle pulled up into the sky.  Another galaxy.  This was going to be the kind of adventure she and Scott had always hoped for.  Assuming everything went according to schedule, they’d be on their way to Andromeda in a few months’ time.  They’d have a lot of catching up to do at breakneck pace, jumping in at the tail end of the preparations like they would be, but they both thrived in the kind of heady excitement that came with a good challenge.  

_("Jumping right in the deep end," Dad used to say when he sprang something on them like an unexpected base jump at the end of a three-day mountain hike.  "No better way to learn to handle those times when life flings unexpected shit at you.  Plus it's invigorating.")_

Which didn’t mean she didn’t know how to enjoy the quiet moments when they came.  Even a short four-year career in the Alliance had taught her plenty about that.

She settled back down onto the bench and leaned back again, taking in the sight of Ontarom’s verdant mountains and beyond them the glow of the system’s moon, massive and looming.  And beyond that…

“It’s been real, Milky Way,” she murmured to herself.  “But I can’t wait to find out what’s out there.”

 

* * *

 

**_2185, New Year’s Eve: Ark Hyperion_ **

The ark had a moon roof.  Months of Pathfinder team training, of learning about the technology and getting familiar with the ships, and the one thing Sara was never going to get over was that _the ark had a moon roof_.

Which was not the technical term for it, as the former engineering student in her was quick to point out, but the fact remained that the exact phrase she’d blurted out upon setting foot in the _Hyperion_ atrium for the first time was, literally, “Holy shit, this thing has a moon roof!”  

The rest of the _Hyperion_ was amazing, that wasn’t up for debate; she’d spent a solid week reading up on the technical specs when she and Scott first arrived, part of a bid to catch up on as much as she could despite coming on board with the Initiative so late in the game.  They were impressive for sure, and she could have happily picked the engineering crew’s brains for a week about the ODSY drive core, let alone all the other designs that she was pretty certain weren’t entirely legal.  She wanted to ask Captain Dunn and the bridge crew about the nav systems, to go over the Nexus blueprints with a microscope, to take her time and explore the medbay from top to bottom, just to see how efficiently it had all been designed.  

But this was what it always came down to in the end: she could stand anywhere here in the atrium, look up, and see the stars.  

“Should’ve known I’d find you here.”

She glanced over her shoulder to see Scott coming down the stairs from the tram, and noticed how his gaze kept flicking upwards to the overhead viewport as he approached with an expression full of the same eagerness and slightly open-mouthed awe she remembered from every adventure and wild escapade they’d ever had as kids.  

She completely knew the feeling, and grinned at him as he reached the base of the stairs, where she was leaning against the railing.  “Best view on the ark.  Should’ve known you’d end up here, too.”

Scott shrugged good-naturedly, hands spread in concession, then came to perch on the center handrail of the staircase.  What point would there be in denying it?  He was only listening to the same call as she was.  “Hell of a speech Garson left for us, huh?”

Sara leaned back against the handrail, close enough to nudge him with her shoulder when she crossed her arms.  “I used to wonder how she convinced so many people to get on board with this idea.  Not so much any more.”  She chuckled and hopped up to sit beside him, then tilted her head back to gaze up through the viewport again.  “All of that stuff about what we become being what matters, going to paint our masterpiece, I mean, _wow_.”

“Tell me about it.  If I wasn’t already here, I’d be begging people to sneak me on board last minute after hearing that.”  Scott slung his arm around her shoulders and looked up as well.  “Gonna be a completely different view through here, after we wake up.”  His voice was low, a little bit sad, but vibrating with an undercurrent of excitement.

“Yeah,” Sara murmured.  “It’s kind of too bad we’re going to be asleep for the whole trip, huh?”

“Eh.  Not sure dark space has a whole lot going for it as a scenic route.”  Scott glanced over at her, and the corners of his mouth twitched up into a smile.  “Besides, weight limits were pretty strict, and you’d go crazy without getting to build things on the way over.”

“Good point.”  Sara fell silent, just looking up at the stars, half-consciously trying to burn the sight of the Milky Way into her memory.  All around them the ark was a low and constant hum of voices and activity, as technicians busied themselves with last-minute systems checks and families hurried down the stairs toward the cryostasis chamber.

 _“Ark Hyperion, this is Captain Dunn.  All personnel, please proceed toward your designated stasis pods,”_ came the announcement over the shipwide speakers.  “ _We’re completing final preparations for launch now, and will be en route to Andromeda shortly.  See you all on the other side.”_

Most of the colonists should already be in stasis, but the stragglers among them would go first, then all nonessential crew, with the Pathfinder team responsible for overseeing the stasis process for the rest of the _Hyperion_ ’s crew before it was their turn.  

This was happening, now.  It was really happening.  Sara felt like she should have something profound to say, but —

“Remember that time you got lost down in the Lower Wards when we were seven?” Scott asked abruptly.

She ducked her head and laughed; the sound echoed much more loudly in the atrium than it had just a few minutes before, startling her into the realization that it was suddenly a lot more empty in here.  “And got my ass grounded for a month?”

“And when Mom finally tracked you down, they found you very seriously explaining Newton’s Third Law to one of the dancers in Chora’s Den.”

Sara scowled at him in poorly feigned offense.  “She asked!  Besides, I’m not the one who tried to stow away on a Blue Suns transport to Omega.”

The doors to the tram hissed open and shut again, and two sets of booted footsteps started coming down the stairs just as it was Scott’s turn to pretend to scowl.  “It was a cool looking ship!  I was curious.”

“Plenty of new kinds of trouble for both of you to get into when we get to Andromeda,” their father said, gruff and struggling to muster a smile that was still somehow awkward. Lieutenant Harper appeared beside him and nodded at both of them.  “Off duty, of course.  Come on.  There’s work to do before we get there.”

Yep.  That was Dad, all right, always impatient to get down to business.  Sara exchanged a look with her brother.  Scott’s jaw was twitching like he wanted to say something sarcastic, and she shook her head subtly.   _He’s trying,_ she wanted to say, and hoped her expression conveyed it.

“Aw, does this mean you’re not going to tell us a bedtime story before you tuck us in, Dad?” she asked, and maybe the joke didn’t _quite_ land as well as she wanted it to, but her father and Cora both laughed, and the tension eased out of Scott’s shoulders.  

“Maybe a short one,” he said.  “But _only_ as long as you brush your teeth and make sure everyone else’s pod is functioning properly before you climb in.”

Scott hopped down from the railing with an exaggerated sigh.  “Okay,” he said, in the exact same way as he’d used to when ordered to get ready for bed.

He even managed the same pout, and Sara couldn’t help snickering.

By the time their final walkthrough of the ark was complete and all life support systems checked out in the green, the Pathfinder team had already assembled in the cryo bay.  Sara watched until Fisher, Greer, and Kirkland’s pods signaled a successful stasis, while Scott oversaw the process for Hayes and Kosta.  

If it had been quiet on board before, the ark was subdued to the point of eeriness now: dark save for some scant emergency lighting and the faint glow of a few remaining terminal screens, and so still that even the faint, barely-perceptible hydraulic hiss of the stasis pods being locked into place set off a cascade of echoes in the cavernous interior of the cryo bay.

It was just Sara and Scott left now; the Pathfinder and his second would be in the separate stasis chamber reserved for the ark’s command crew, and Lieutenant Harper had gone ahead to oversee the process for the bridge officers.

Their father came over and laid a hand on each of their shoulders, a little too heavily at first, then almost flinching away.  

“I need to check on a couple of final things first,” he said, “and then I’ll be back to check on you two, all right?”

There wasn’t enough light left to make his expression out clearly, and he’d always been difficult to read even at the best of times, but Sara thought she could hear a trace of affection beneath the gruffness in his voice, a wavering undercurrent of — weird as it was to say about him — vulnerability.

To tell the truth, it was slightly unnerving.  Not in a bad way, though.

“Okay,” she said, and put an arm around him in a clumsy attempt at a hug.  Scott, after a moment of hesitation, followed suit.

“I’m proud of you both, I want you to know that.”  As if that one moment of affection had been too much for their father to handle, he pulled away from them then and strode quickly out of the cryo bay.   His words lingered quite literally in the air, though, strange and almost unfamiliar in their openness.

“Well,” Scott said once he was gone, “that was… something.”

“Yeah.”  Sara sat down on the edge of her open stasis pod.  “Bets on whether he tried to convince Captain Dunn to let him flip the final switch?”

Her brother snorted and began climbing into the pod next to hers.  “Not taking that bet, thanks.”

She had one leg slung over the edge of the pod, but paused to look at him.  “Probably smart.  So… ready to leave it all behind?”

“Ready to see what’s out there,” he answered, and she understood.  “ _More_ than ready.  My whole life, everything before — I feel like this is what I’ve been getting ready to do.”

“A whole new start.  New stars, new discoveries, maybe whole new scientific breakthroughs.”  It was a good thing she wasn’t on her feet any more, because thinking about all the possibilities ahead of them was such a heady prospect that Sara had to take a sharp breath just to process it.  “Who knows what we’re going to find?  Bring it on.”

“Damn right.”  Scott flashed her one last grin, barely visible in the light from the pod’s control panel, before lying down.  “Sky’s the limit, huh?”

“Nah.”  Sara settled down, got comfortable, and reached up to take hold of the pod’s hatch.  She closed her eyes as she did, but stars still flooded her vision.  Always did, always would.  “Not even that.”


End file.
